Nigeria emerges the world largest cassava producer

Currently, about half of the world production of cassava is in Africa. Cassava is cultivated in around 40 African countries, stretching through a wide belt from Madagascar in the Southeast to Senegal and to Cape Verde in the Northwest. Around 70 percent of Africa's cassava output is harvested in Nigeria, the Congo and Tanzania (IFAD and FAO, 2000). Throughout the forest and transition zones of Africa, cassava is either a primary staple or a secondary food staple, In 1999, Nigeria produced 33 million tonnes making it the world's largest producer.

Maize is Africa's most important food crop and it is held up as a model food crop to meet Africa's growing urban demand for convenient food products (Mellor et al., 1987, Blackie, 1990 and Byerlee and Eicher, 1997). Maize production however, is risky because of unpredictable rainfall. Cassava is Africa's second most important food staple in terms of per capita calories consumed. Cassava is a major source of calories for roughly two out of every five Africans. In some countries, cassava is consumed daily and sometimes more than once a day. In the Congo, cassava contributes more than 1 000 calories per person per day to the average diet and many families eat cassava for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Cassava has several other advantages over rice, maize and other grains as a food staple in areas where there is a degraded resource base, uncertain rainfall and weak market infrastructure. It is drought tolerant; this attribute makes it the most suitable food crop during periods of drought and famine.

In the early 1960s in Africa, cassava was planted in 5.6 million ha per year. Thirty-five years later, in the late 1990s, it was planted in 10 million ha per year. The six countries which currently account for most of the cassava area are the Congo, Côte d'lvoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. The cassava planted areas increased almost three fold in Ghana and Nigeria from 1961 to 1999. FAO CORPORATE DOCUMENT REPOSITORY